How Resident Evil 6 Blends Elements From Past Games (Plus Skill Point Details)

Siliconera recently met up with Resident Evil 6 producers Yoshiaki Hirabayashi and Hiroyuki Kobayashi. The meeting started with a peek at Chris fighting a new B.O.W. with his partner Piers. This snake-like creature can turn invisible (or "cloak") and chases players even if you try to escape by running into another room. Afterwards, we talked about how Resident Evil 6 pulls elements from past Resident Evil games and how they designed the partner characters interesting to play as.

After seeing Chris hunt down the snake B.O.W., it kind of feels like his part is more like Resident Evil 5 and Leon’s route is more like the classic Resident Evil games.

Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, Producer: What you saw in this stage, I think it brings back the horror feeling from earlier Resident Evil titles, even though it is in Chris’ stage. I’m sure, as you said, when fans see this they will consider the Leon part of the campaign, the more traditional Resident Evil style horror setting and Chris’ campaign will feel a little more like Resident Evil 5. I think there are horror elements from the older Resident Evil titles and Resident Evil 5.

We tried to make sure that we can incorporate horror elements into all of the campaigns, but there are different types of horror for everyone. There is not one kind of monolithic horror that unites them all. What does unite the campaigns is the fact that they are Resident Evil and we wanted to make sure they all feel like Resident Evil. When people play the game, since they are fans from different entries in the series – some people like [Resident Evil] 5 and some people like [Resident Evil] 1. We wanted to make sure we put stuff in the game that pleases everyone.

When you play Chris’ campaign you may feel its more action oriented and it is, but there are still horror elements in that so it isn’t a straight up shooting campaign.

Yeah, I see the Resident Evil 1 influence with the way the snake appears before the battle begins and hints that a fight is coming, but where does Jake fit in with respect to gameplay?

Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Executive Producer: For Jake’s story, he’s being pursued by a creature called Ustanak. This gigantic creature doesn’t stop for anything, it relentlessly pursues you. We’re hoping to bring back the feeling from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis where the Nemesis creature pursued Jill the whole time. What sets this game apart, is you’re not alone now. You have to escape with Sherry, the creature is pursuing Sherry both of you.

I see you’ve done a lot to differentiate Jake with his hand to hand fighting and grappling attacks from Chris, but what about the partner characters. How are you going to make sure being Sherry is say as fun as playing Jake?

YH: I have to say that even though Sherry is a partner character, we treat all of them as main characters. As you said, we want to make sure there is something fun for each of them. We gave Sherry a stun baton, a special weapon only she can use in the game. It puts her on the same level as Jake in terms of the martial arts techniques that he uses to fight, she can use the stun baton in fights as well to the same effect.

All of the other characters including Helena and Piers, they have unique abilities on they can use so it will be a different experience when playing as one of them.

Piers is supposed to be a sniper, but what about Helena?

HK: Yeah, Piers is a sniper.

YH: Personally, Helena is my favorite character in the group. [Laughs.] I suppose her most prominent feature is her bust size. [Laughs.] If we’re talking about action, she does have special traits. One of the items she can use is the shotgun. When Leon uses the quick shot feature, he uses two handguns for rapid fire. Helena uses a shotgun, which Leon can’t, and when she uses the shotgun for quick fire she can do that multiple times in a row. That’s one feature Helena has that other characters don’t have.

Also, the physical attacks she does are different from Leon’s. There is some overlap of what they can do and out of all the characters they are the closest in resembling each other in terms of what they can do. But, she has a different set of physical attacks, so when you are playing as her you can do different things and it will feel like a different character.

With all of these characters, how is the skill point system going to work? Will you be able to distribute these between characters?

YH: The skill points you gather will be shared across all of the characters. It’s not like you pick them up with Leon and can only use them for Leon. You can them across all of the characters and when you do that you have a list of skills you can unlock. Then you can add those on to characters. You can also change them at anytime during the game.

Let’s say you’re playing Leon’s campaign and you reach a certain point in his campaign where the skills you have equipped aren’t really suitable to what’s going on that moment. You can swap them out for something more useful or advantageous for that point in the game. We envision it that you can take these skill sets and assign them to different characters and say this is how I’m want to use them and we also want to give players the freedom to change them as they will.

To clarify about unlocking skills, if you unlock a skill in Leon’s campaign and it’s available to choose for the characters, you don’t have to re-unlock it for Chris’ campaign.

Resident Evil feels more action packed these days. Do you think we’ll see a traditional horror Resident Evil again or more portable Resident Evil games like Revelations?

HK: We really want to make sure whatever platform we put it on or what system we put it on the Resident Evil game matches that system. We want to be able to fully utilize what that device does for that Resident Evil game. I can’t speak to specifically right now, but when we make announcements in the future you’ll see.

Good horror don’t need to be specialized when done well, if this was true imagine how many versions of The exorcist 1 we would have seen out.

Forgot to add, the skill system sounds very interesting. Wonder if they will work like the Mercenaries 3D skills or more in-depth.

OatMatadoQuatro

Well, Sherry already survived a zombie armageddon in RE2 without the use of a weapon. Now it’s her time to kick ass.

kupomogli

The main reason to even play this would be co op. Resident Evil 5 isn’t that great a game without co op, but co op makes it good. Looks like Resident Evil 6 will be mostly without co op, and since it carries over Resident Evil 4/5 generic third person gameplay with a few updates, there’s no reason to play this over a bazillion other third person shooters.

The inferior shooter gameplay would work if it’s a survivor horror, but now that they’re pushing away from being even remotely survivor horror, the inferior gameplay just doesn’t cut it. Unless the storyline is absolutely amazing, and we know that’s not going to be the case, there’s no reason to get this.

Those who haven’t finished off the Uncharted, Gears, Army of Two, Vanquish, or Spec Ops the Line, you guys might as well purchase those instead of wasting your money. Guaranteed to have better third person shooter gameplay or your money back. The Army of Two series is already great, add a friend, split screen or online and it’s the best listed here.

Luna Kazemaru

Its funny every time you post its alway something negtive ir dumb. Please don’t tell me or any other how to spend their money

Guest

leave him alone he’s just expressing his opinion

kupomogli

Those games I listed. Go buy them. Go buy them now! Or don’t.

zweii

Sorry!
I meant to read the article but i can’t get over that header image.
Female-genitalia-with-claws headed monster. WTF!

Z3

Then my friend, I advise you to stare at the gaping dragon from Dark Souls to satisfy your lust for female-genitalia-with-claws-mouthed-monster

Laharl

Skill points sound kinda like Merc’s 3D

http://www.facebook.com/RatedR89 Irvin Manfred Wesker

i want my RE trilogy(1,2,3) feel back , ustanak nope , i prefer nemesis chasing my a*s off, hope leon’s side can deliver what am i looking for , mercenary mode SSDT(same Sh*t different title), but i still buy this game anyway look awesome and more importantly for the story that they try to tell , co-op i dun give a d8 about that , hope my good old friend Dr A.Wesker is back

60hz

As long as it got Mercenaries Mode i’m sold.

Guest

but no Claire, Jill, Sheva, and Rebecca?

l777l

Good that you asked the last question, even though you didn’t get it answered.

SirRichard

The skill points thing sounds sort of interesting, but it could also end up entirely arbitrary and really adding nothing to the game. I hope they balance it right, and at least they’re allowing for re-speccing if I’m reading that right.

That said, I do like how basic elements, concepts and themes from past games are re-purposed for this one, as if nothing else it adds a nice variety to the gameplay that I felt 5 was particularly lacking in (4 at least had puzzles and the old Resi “find the key” thing going on).

Dario Portillo

was that last paragraph a hint of a WiiU Resident evil Game?

Silver Phoenix

Probably. Either WiiU will get some kind of exclusive changes to RE6 or a separate title using that damn screenpad as your inventory screen/map.

Laharl

”
To clarify about unlocking skills, if you unlock a skill in Leon’s campaign and it’s available to choose for the characters, you don’t have to re-unlock it for Chris’ campaign.”

Sounds like there are exclusive skills thought, Which is nice. Better Have Leon-Plex!

Ronald Bixler

Whatever disease that Leon contracted that made him forget how to use a shotgun, is now ranked higher than AIDs in my “Bad Things to Avoid” list.

Laharl

Sounds like ONLY Helena uses the Shotgun… IT MUST BE SPREADING

Ronald Bixler

It’s a conspiracy! The zombie outbreak is spreading and our ability to use one of our major lines of defense is being made to atrophy! Maybe I should look into stockpiling Zombrex…

http://profile.yahoo.com/LNQ4YTPE7R5RLAKZGEOAQMRLJI Nick

Well this more or less confirms there will be a exclusive RE game for Wii U using the new controller interface. I just hope it’s a new game and not a remake. And RE6 is sounding a lot better than RE5, I wish people wouldgive it a chance instead of hating on it all the time, seems any game franchise that is popular and sells well gets **** on all the time by the hipster lamers.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Dylan-Ng/100000854638739 Dylan Ng

It seems lk we r the only few who doesn’t immediately points fingers around here…

kevinposta

*sees headline picture*
This news are too hot to ignore.

…Okay that was the best I could come up without scaring the younger audience D:

badmoogle

“When Leon uses the quick shot feature, he uses two handguns for rapid fire. Helena uses a shotgun, which Leon can’t, and when she uses the shotgun for quick fire she can do that multiple times in a row.”

Yeah sounds exactly like classic Resident Evil.
*rolls eyes*

Nitraion

It is like pokemon game 1…2….3…. and poof you forgot to use shotgun…XD
anyway RE6 seems to be to RPG direction….Well let’see in the when the game released

https://twitter.com/SaveTheQueenIX Liquid Kaz (Umar)

i wonder if there is anyway to grid for skill or points hmm?

Pierce

They keep saying there’s a huge difference between the various characters campaigns but aside from aesthetics they still seem to rely heavily on melee attacks and super sliding and whatever else. Just because it’s dark doesn’t mean it’s suddenly old school RE. If you’re going to change it fine, but don’t start trying to throw in the minutest of nods to the old games and say that it’s a call back to the old games.

Jake’s pursuer being similar to Nemesis is probably the strongest connection to RE3 especially since it has something that legitimately affects gameplay but it’s not the same when you can throw out 4 hit combos and shoot tons of rounds while your partner helps you suplex a guy

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_T7DWRG7XNTBUBV3BKORMXZQT7M makeno

Looks great! I’ll pick this game up…..

…when they release the gold/complete edition that has all the dlc within it for $20 dollars.

http://profile.yahoo.com/BE7Y4WXKUAVN3JPDDGXKGISSAU Douglas

game really looks good im getting it for the the countless hours of gameplay.
cant express enough of how much of a fan i am to the series ( BIG!) but i like the fact you can now finally move and shoot, the other stuff like dodge and slide is just a plus. how I wish they had these features in 5 & 4 but hey! you learn from your mistakes right capcom, just let me know when i can look forward to a RE title with the three female leads kicking ass and chewing bubble gum lol ( duke nukem ) if you didnt know xD

Video game stories from other sites on the web. These links leave Siliconera.